A clandestine undertaking on behalf of Israel, the Jets and the Jews.

 
Don Imus

I don't have time to post thoughts about the controversy surrounding Don Imus' racist statements about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Instead, the following is from an August 20, 2003 post about Imus, following the horrific bombing of the Jerusalem number 2 bus returning from the Western Wall:

On his radio program this morning, Don Imus interviewed Tom Rose, publisher
of The Jerusalem Post. The interview was fine until toward the end, when Imus
mentioned (without name) Goldie Taubenfeld, a chasidic mother of 13 from New
Square, New York, who was killed in yesterday's bombing, with at least one of
her daughters wounded. Rumors suggest that a 6-month-old child of Mrs.
Taubenfeld was also killed, but at this time that has not been confirmed.
Derisively referring to Mrs. Taubenfeld, Imus asked Rose:

"What was that woman thinking? I mean, what'd she say to herself, let's go
to Jerusalem and get on a bus?"

Instead of objecting to Imus' offensive statement, Rose meekly responded that the woman was probably an immigrant to Israel who needed to ride the bus to get around. Not only is that factually inaccurate, but it suggests that one needs to be defensive about riding buses in Israel, something most visitors frequently do.

UPDATE: It has now been confirmed that six-month-old Shmuel Taubenfeld was killed in the suicide bombing. The family had come to Jerusalem for a wedding.

A few days later, I posted about a chasidic man whose son married Mrs. Taubenfeld's daughter and who sat across from me in shul the following shabbos. In a subsequent post, I wrote that "this man was crying during the services, and initially I figured that either he was extremely pious, or a bit eccentric, probably both. But then during a break in the Torah reading, he told me that his son's wife's mother and infant brother - visiting Jerusalem from New Square - were on that bus and were murdered in the bombing, with a sister seriously wounded."
posted on 4/11/2007